Mirror, Mirror
by Haku Ishatar
Summary: They had hated each other from the first day they had met. But now, in their sixth year, they will come to realise they weren't as different as they thought. (Slash.) (AU 6th year)


Haku: Oh my, all worship my first real non-hindered venture into the Harry Potter-verse! Yeah, I read a HP fic earlier that inspired me to write my own bit of Harry x Draco goodness.  
  
Sayian Jedi: What? Yaoi???? AGAIN?!! -hits Haku over the head-  
  
Y. Haku: That wasn't very nice, Jedi.  
  
Haku: Owww.... And don't worry, I have a schedule to work to with my other fics. THEY WILL BE UPDATED REGULARALY FROM NOW ON! (One fic a week.)  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, and after the PoA movie, I'm glad I don't.

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Mirror, Mirror.

* * *

He wasn't what you would call strong, was the bleach-blonde boy who sat on the end of the grand bed, in his grand room, decorated in the best of taste, and containing no essence of Teenage life that one would even have found in the bedroom of one of the poorest dwellings. In fact, he wasn't what you would call a lot of things. He had never had the words brave, noble, smart, wise and so on used about him, unless in a completely sarcastic sense, but that didn't mean what he thought it did, did it?  
  
His narrowed, electric blue eyes flitted about the room in an almost nervous way, landing upon the shrunken head that his father had claimed 'fascinating, a real work of art.' And he shivered. At the time his father had claimed this, he found it disgusting, but nodded along, agreeing 'wholeheartedly' with his father's opinion to keep the man happy. When he had opened the package to reveal the head on his 10th birthday, a year before Hogwarts he had found it unsettling that his father expected him to like it.  
  
Now he found it downright frightening.  
  
Dimly, he had registered in his youth that he was expected to be a small clone like follower of his father, when his father had drawn him away from the small black haired child he had met when he was 7, sitting upon the slide and looking downright miserable.  
  
He remembered the approach he made, remembered the way they had played together, remembered the forceful, almost painful grip his father held on his arm as he dragged him away, and the beating he had received later, for 'consorting with a muggle.' He had bowed to his father's will easily after that, though he did not agree with it, feebly pretending to be a spitting image of his father, and thus impressing his mother, and earning him 'their respect.' He wasn't very strong, and he knew it, he bent like a reed even over the smallest of things.  
  
He sighed, as he heard the shuffle of respecting feet approaching his door. He dimly registered the fact that someone had entered his room, but thought nothing of it, one pale, fragile arm draped over his equally pale forehead, his blue eyes shut, and looking the image of lethargy. There was a small, panting of breath, as the other struggled to drag something into his room.  
  
He looked up briefly, meeting eyes with an elderly woman, her features severe and strict, but her eyes soft and warm. He knew his father didn't approve of this servant in the exclusive manner, a woman with very little magical blood and never trained in the arts of witchcraft and sorcery, but he liked her.  
  
"Master Draco, Your father says that you are to come down to dinner in half an hour. It will not be brought up to your room, because he has things to discuss." She said, repeating the message that no doubt his father had made her repeat word for word, until she had gotten it perfect. He pretended not to notice the bitter way she had spoken 'your father' because he slightly agreed with her views on the man. Only ever so slightly. He reminded himself, as he nodded, and gestured to the large object she held in her arms.  
  
"Quaadi? What's that?" He asked, a sort of fearful curiosity sinking over him as he looked at his father's 'new possession.' She handed it to him, and he gulped. Another gift. She smiled at his reluctance, something fleeting flashing across her eyes, an emotion he couldn't quite catch. Her golden-brown eyes, slightly speckled with the white of age were always warm when she looked at him. Whether this was because they were the warm colour of thick honey, or because she truly cared, Draco had never really known. With much trepidation, he pulled back the brown paper that the object was wrapped within, gasping as an ordinary mirror fell out of it, and landed rather heavily on his bedcovers.  
  
"Were you expecting another of your father's horrors master Draco?" She asked him, her voice lined with amusement, and her eyes laughing. He scowled at her, and held up the mirror so it reflected her old and wrinkled face in its depths.  
  
He mock gasped and pretended to shy away from it, earning him a playful cuff over the ear. "You'll mind your manners young master if you know what's good for you. Did your father not teach you respect for your elders?" He smiled at her, and gently hung the mirror over his chest of draws, his wand gently resting beneath it's gilded frame. It was quite the creation, a grove of silver vines rising to frame it at every angle, the surface impossibly smooth, plated silver beaten flat and polished to sheen behind it. In truth, it reflected almost too much light to be effective as a mirror, but Draco saw why his father liked it. There was a silver shining hand at the base of the mirror, gripping a golden skull, the vines twirling about the frame originating from its eye sockets.  
  
There was a brilliant green emerald that shone out of the top of the frame, the ethereal force escaping it carrying a slightest hint of danger. The teen thought nothing of it. Everything in his father's mansion was dangerous.  
  
"Master Draco, you better get washed up for dinner me lad, you know how your father is when you're late." Quaadi held practical advice as usual. Draco hated upsetting his father, for more reasons than one.  
  
The meal itself was a quiet affair, Draco noticed, and he didn't see at all why his father had called him down for it, instead of sending the meal up to the boy's room as per usual. The man had almost been placid towards his son all through the meal, only making the occasional harsh comment about Draco needing to 'improve' himself if he ever wanted to be a true Slytherin. The boy, far too used to his father's critical eye to care about the stinging comments ate his meal in silence, hoping to escape his blue eyed father's wrath.  
  
Such was not to be the case, however, as his father's reprimanding temperament soon set in, making him seem almost as if he were a murderous ghost in Draco's eyes. The man's naturally white hair emphasised this appearance, his blue eyes shining like lifeless sapphires, set into the whitegold colouring that was his face. Everything about the man could be linked with wealth and refinement, even his appearance, which always seemed to remind Draco of a silver noose with Sapphire inlays in it's depths, the sapphire arranged ever so carefully about his neck, that should he perchance glance down to see them, they spelled his demise in a flowing, regal script.  
  
"Draco." The harsh way the word was spoken made the boy flinch. He prepared himself for another rant about the importance of upholding family honour, the rant that always came the day before he boarded the scarlet steam engine, but it never came. Instead, a hand flew to the side of his face and struck, leaving a pink mark, on his otherwise milky skin.  
  
He held his head to the side, and didn't dare wince. This was his father's way of showing his strength, he reasoned, hardly daring to breathe. His father was just testing him, like he had every other of the years he had gone off to Hogwarts. Maybe this year, his sixth, his father had decided to take the test from verbal to physical. He waited his training out, never even letting his breathing pattern change with the course of pain that was served him, waiting, praying for his escape to his room, hoping he wouldn't die of the overwhelming sensations of fire racing upon his veins first.  
  
He was saved, when his mother had claimed that it was time for his confinement, his curfew from which he wasn't allowed out of this room. He dragged himself up the cavernous stairs to his large, empty bedroom, falling upon the bed as if he were drugged and in a daze. Which, he reminded himself, and judged his father's track record, he probably was. Quaadi was waiting for him by the headboard of his bed, with a small heat pack, a muggle invention that she was quite proud of, and had managed to spell so that it retained heat no matter where it was. She gently placed it upon his aching muscles, the warmth brining relief, as she gently stroked his hair and sang soothing words under her breath, just as if she was a mother singing to a restless toddler. The two had an unspoken agreement, that she was his surrogate mother, not only a servant and nanny, and he would defend her from anything, just as she was always there to offer comforting and soothing words when his real parents stepped too far.  
  
She pretended not to notice the tears that rolled unhindered down his cheeks, just as he pretended he didn't know she knew they were there. As slowly his tears stopped falling, she stood, gently, as to not crumple the soft blankets of the spacious bed. He looked up at her as she retreated across the room, and asked of her, "Quaadi? Are you my friend?"  
  
She smiled at him, seeing the lost, underdeveloped look that flitted through his eyes, almost as if he were a three year old who craved company. "Now don't you let your farther hear you talking to me like that young master. A true Slytherin needs nobody." She couldn't hide the slight scorn that flew to words that her employer paid her to speak, should his son enquire as to his loneliness. The boy on the bed smiled slightly.  
  
"Father paid you to say that." He whispered, his eyes rolling back into his head, as he gave in to the bliss of unconsciousness.

* * *

"YOU TOUCH HER AND I'LL TURN YOU INTO A _SLUG_ DUDLEY DURSELY!"  
  
"MOM! HARRY THREATENED ME WITH THE 'M' WORD!"  
  
"FOR GODSSAKE DUDLEY! IT'S MAGIC! MA-GIC! IT'S NO..."  
  
This last enraged shout was cut off as the sixteen year old who had made it was slammed viciously into the flower print wallpaper that decked the hallway of number 2 Privet Drive, Little Whinging. The owner of the hand that had hoisted the messy black haired boy off his feet, hanging by the scruff of a sweater three sizes too big, was a large beefy man, with a purple face and small, beady eyes that held more water than one would have thought physically possible. Sharp teeth cultivated words before letting them spill over fleshy lips. "What word would that be?" The dangerous whisper from behind the boy, ungracefully pressed against the wall was harsh, almost daring the boy to speak back.  
  
The boy himself had bottle green eyes, hidden behind round spectacles, which he had prayed he could have replaced with contacts these holidays, but had been unable to find the time. He had raven coloured hair that stuck up at impossible angles, and he could not even control with vast amounts of hair spray or gel, not that he'd ever had the money to go to a store and buy said products.  
  
The source of the argument which was spiralling rather dangerously into the threshold of violent row hooted softly, looking down at her master with a soft hint of worry behind her intelligent amber eyes. The boy's eyes flashed from their position against the wall. "Magic." He replied to his uncle, the one holding him fiercely in place. "If Dudley hurts my owl, not only will I do _magic_ but I will make _sure_ that your son is never in that form again." There was a dangerous sounding growl coming from his uncle, which he met with one of his own.  
  
"You can't, there's a law in your world that says you can't. You're underage." This caused the other to laugh mirthlessly, startling the other into letting go.  
  
The black haired boy turned with an unnerving, Cheshire smile. "It was revoked." He said, deliberately lying to his uncle to get the man to let go. The snowy white owl that had been flitting around, perfectly aware that it was safe near its master, alighted on his shoulder. "And if Dudley even THINKS of touching Hedwig again, I will use that to my advantage." The boy moved out of his shocked uncle's line of sight, and slowly and deliberately made his way upstairs, taking care to show the wooden shaft sticking out of his back jeans pocket.  
  
He managed to get to his room before his anger ran out. He managed to open his window, and place Hedwig gently in her cage before the emotion that anger had replaced crawled out from under his desk, it's tail between it's legs, and struck him down. He fell back onto his bed, staring lethargically up at the ceiling in a similar way to what a blonde boy halfway across the country had been doing two hours ago. Except there had been fear in the blonde's eyes, an inescapable fear, in the black haired one's eyes there was just sadness. A broken man, relying on his anger until his anger was spent, then descending into darkness.  
  
He was torn, was the boy, for tomorrow would also be his first day of his sixth year at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, and he would be facing it with a hole in his heart, where his godfather had rested until recently.  
  
He still found it hard to believe that the man was really gone for good, to the point where unopened letters from his friends containing condolences and tear stains were stacked up upon his desk. He hadn't touched them, and each letter was addressed more hastily, fear causing the same name to be written more and more untidily. A closer inspection of some of the legible ones read "Harry."

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Haku: It's all good!   
  
Jedi: Bad! Yaoi! -bonks with anime mallet again-  
  
Not this chapter! -collapses-  
  
Kageka: Read and review. 


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